Jan; "The battle is not to outwit an implanted RFID; the battle is for there to be someone left who would want to." That's a +1

Parents are already doing this to their children out of fear of child kidnapping. They think of it like a human 'Lotrack' for safety.

Remember that statement in 10 years time, maybe sooner.

Plop plop fizz fizz. Something more in that vein, I suppose...?

I do not disagree with what you say, barwick. There is the additional possibility of genetic 'sniffers' that do not require anything to be implanted at all - they just sample some of the 30K skin cells that you shed (per minute) as you walk down the street and ID your DNA from that.

I am aware of this possibility as a result of having worked a bit with (a) search and rescue dogs and (b) clinical laboratory. In the latter, serious work is going into confirming a patient ID by genetic markers...one of the major problems with lab work is that specimens get mixed up and the wrong results can be reported on a patient. If your automated analyzers all check DNA tags on their samples you can catch most of these discrepancies.

Jan

You're presuming things are going to stay the size they currently are.

As technology progresses (and is kinda already here), they could very easily implant a nano-sized device that is next to impossible to find physically without using a combination of sensors to triangulate its location.

Or they could install multiple in different locations so if one is removed, the others take over and alert the government that one was removed.

Tech is at a point that a lot of things can be done autonomously in an instant.

Honestly, there's a lot that could be done, and I believe that the ones who are going to come out on top are going to be the ones who can react to technology the fastest (read: not the feds in their current instantiation). The losers can either react with overwhelming force, or realize they're lagging behind and change. The way the media responds will determine if they react with overwhelming force or not.

I'll try to dig it up and post.

Do you have alink to your paper or would you consider posting it?

It 's an error to blame the technology. Governments have always used whatever methods to control you. They require you to carry papers, register arms, take pics of you on the street corner, read your emails. Not technology but tyranny. Don 't run from tech stand up to tyrants is my view.

Years ago (before Kurtzweil) I wrote a paper on "self initiated evolution", predicting that technology would eventually (and inevitably) lead to a very different human family. We will eventually have the genetically engineered, made up of the "perfect", with long life, near absolute immunity from disease, etc.; the bionics, enhanced by a marriage of technology and biology; the "autonics", who are nothing but robots that have reached the level of emotion and intelligence that we would consider sentient; and the "statics", who resist technology "help". The process is seductive - witness how many have become slaves to a device as seemingly harmless as the cell phone.

Barring catastrophe, I do not think we are going to return to a world where we are untraceable and anonymous, though it is both plausible and heartening that we might find a way to put a lid on continual official scrutiny. If this theory is true, it is still not a cause for panic: what humans can do, we can undo, subvert, or avoid.

Let us say, Ranter, that you avoid being microchipped (as would I). The next level of urban scrutiny may well be 'sniffers' that sample the DNA imprint of those passing by and trace their movements accordingly. We would then have to come up with some other method of preserving anonymity to fool that system. This cycle of surveillance and avoidance could continue indefinitely.

I think that a better answer is to change our culture such that this level of scrutiny is considered unacceptable...but this requires that a preponderance of the people actually do not want to be traced. It is the security/freedom dichotomy again. Failing this, we who value freedom will have to come up with a technical solution to each problem. This is not a case of a sudden 'apocalypse', it is an endurance race by those people who will not give up valuing freedom.

Jan

There's a helluva difference between a credit/debit card and an implant. If society has evolved to the point where a person cannot function without a credit card, and all the possible cheating and control that represents, can you not imagine the greater control an implant represents. If this is even a possibility for the future, I fear for the freedom of humanity.

Count me in.

Out of you? I won't ever need a laxative again.

Never, never allow such a horror to happen in the first place.

I'm right there with you on this AJ. My body is a "no-go zone" for gov't intrusion. They'll have to kill me first.

100% agree. Unless I do something illegal the Government, at any level, doesn't need to know I exist.

I would prefer to be invisible all the time. If wearing a microchip is normal, I'll remain abnormal.

That makes it even easier: use an external plug and a skin-colored patch over the RFID and when you do not want to be tracked any more - unplug it. Or you could just trade the RFID you have with someone else and really confuse the trackers.

My point is that this is merely technology. I am not too concerned about it being put into use because any where that can sponsor a maker-lab, abortion clinic, or illicit drug lab can also provide for inactivation, exchange, or optional use of these devices.

The battle is not to outwit an implanted RFID; the battle is for there to be someone left who would want to.

Jan

The larger thing to be remembered is that the consolidation of the currency into electronic units also allows for a smaller group of people to dictate your wealth and well-being without your knowledge or consent. You have no defense against something such as this AND no way to reverse it should you not appreciate it. Mind you the O-care overreach and what will in time become mandatory compliance to a variety of things under the guise of controlling costs for the government (fallacies of vision)

unless, this is my sci-fi writers mind talking, the device is designed to be powered off voltage taken from the human body via some type of chemical reaction)

I think it would be easy to remove the RFID from your body and then just band-aid it to the surface of your body somewhere. That way, you will appear to be normal but be able to disappear whenever you want to by popping it in a band-aid box. Neat.

Jan

It's giving me a few grey hairs, here. Really, it's scary how close things are paralleling 'Shadows Live Under Seashells'!